MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Border controls are a necessary part of any civilised state

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Tory MPs from the former Red Wall seats seized from Labour in 2019 have begun to revolt against the Government’s obsession with the COP26 conference on global warming.

They want Ministers to turn their minds instead to the alarming rise in illegal migration across the Channel.

They have a point. Many British people view this as one of the most urgent problems facing the country and they would like to know what Boris Johnson is going to do about it, especially since the French authorities seem to be incapable of decisive or effective action.

Criminal people traffickers, more confident by the day, are now smuggling so many men and women across the Strait of Dover that the known daily total recently reached 1,185.

Tory MPs want Ministers to turn their minds instead to the alarming rise in illegal migration across the Channel. (Pictured) four lifeboats and several Border Force vessels are involved in multiple rescue operations in the English Channel.

Even the deteriorating weather has not reduced the flow, though an unknown number drown, a disgraceful side effect of this cynical industry. How is it that France, a modern state with huge technical resources, efficient armed services and large police forces, has so little control over its own coastline and territorial waters that it cannot prevent such tragedies? Others presumably make it to land without being observed or recorded by the UK border authorities.

Even allowing for days when the sea is too rough to cross, this means that each year about 300,000 illegal immigrants could soon be reaching this country by this route, a figure roughly the same as the populations of Newcastle upon Tyne, Brighton or the London suburb of Hillingdon.

The Mail on Sunday does not blame the migrants for trying to reach our country. We understand that our prosperous, peaceful and safe civilisation is a beacon to those in lands that are less fortunate.

Nor do we oppose immigration as such. Every country needs some migrants and benefits from them. And we believe it is the duty of civilised nations to give sanctuary to genuine refugees.

In 1972, the half-crazed Ugandan despot Idi Amin expelled large numbers of Asians in a blatant act of racial persecution. To the great benefit of this country, thousands of them settled in Britain – where they have contributed enormously to the nation they made their home.

At the time this was seen as a major political and social crisis, and a considerable strain on our resources.

Yet the total of those who came was just over 27,000 – a figure that could now be equalled by illegal cross-Channel migrants in a single month.

And in the case of the Ugandan Asians, they did not simply prefer Britain to France as a final destination. They held actual British passports, came here legally and were beyond doubt the victims of cruel persecution.

Criminal people traffickers, more confident by the day, are now smuggling so many men and women across the Strait of Dover that the known daily total recently reached 1,185. A group of thirteen migrants pictured off of the coast of Lydd, Kent on Saturday morning (Pictured)

So it is quite reasonable, and in fact desirable, for Tory MPs to be concerned about this present issue and to expect a reasoned and practical response from Downing Street.

Tom Tugendhat describes in this newspaper today the worrying developments in which migrants are being used as weapons against the West, on the border between Belarus and Poland. This ugly confrontation only makes the problem more urgent.

Uncontrolled migration is unfair on those who follow the rules, rewards criminal gangs, produces tension and bitterness and makes integration far harder.

The remarks made by the outgoing head of Border Force, which we report today, suggest a high-level unwillingness to grasp that proper frontier control is a necessary part of any civilised state.

It is time that the Prime Minister and Home Secretary Priti Patel together turned their minds to ending this intolerable scandal and human tragedy.